We advocate on all animal protection and exploitation issues, including experimentation, factory farming, rodeos, breeders and traveling animal acts.

Animal Defenders of Westchester
P.O. Box 205
Yonkers, NY 10704

Action Alerts

STARBUCKS support RODEO bloody money!

From Showing Animals Respect and Kindness (SHARK)

Subject: STARBUCKS support RODEO bloody money!

Appalling new photos linked to Starbucks rodeo support

Attendance at rodeo events has been declining in recent years, and public
audiences will never generate enough revenue to prop up the limping rodeos.
Rodeo continues across this country because of the nasty deals made between
the abusers and corporations eager to hawk their products on the backs of
battered animals.

Armed with this season’s worth of extremely damning evidence from rodeos
around the country, SHARK will be widening our front of attack to encompass
all significant sponsors and endorsers of the Professional Rodeo Cowboys
Association (PRCA). With your help, we will watch them fall like dominoes.
Who will be the first to tip? We believe that Starbucks, the coffee shop
giant, is likely.

Starbucks, with their green-aproned employees, prides itself on being a
socially and environmentally conscious company. Starbucks strives to emulate
‘corporate social responsibility’ and in fact produces an annual Corporate
Social Responsibility (CSR) report, in which the company details ways in
which they strive to make positive changes in their environmental impact and
community involvement. Starbucks says, “Contributing positively to our
communities and environment is so important to Starbucks that it’s a guiding
principle of our mission statement.”

Well, at this year’s Cheyenne Frontier Days in Wyoming, what was
apparently ‘so important’ to Starbucks was supporting this extremely abusive
rodeo by advertising in the program and even extending their hours for rodeo
fans. Starbucks must learn that supporting events full of inherent cruelty
is not “contributing positively to our communities.”

SHARK documented extensive abuse, neglect, injuries and even deaths at
the horrific Cheyenne Frontier Days rodeo. Horses, already injured and
bleeding, continued to be used for the audience’s entertainment. “Wild”
stampedes were concocted, leading to numerous injuries for the already
frightened horses. Young steer were thrown and contorted with such force
that horrid injuries were evident and many of these animals could not walk
away, but were dragged off to certain death.

Most importantly, you and Starbucks do not have to take our word for it;
you can see the awful truth for yourself.

The Cheyenne Frontier Days, and indeed all rodeo, is clearly so horrific
that Starbucks should no longer collude with and support such abuse. Tell
them acts such as these do not add ‘positively to our communities.’ The
images that SHARK captures are virtually impossible to erase from one’s
mind, but are truly impossible to erase from the lives of these animals, and
indeed all the animals to come, as long as corporations support rodeo.

What You Can Do:

1. See for yourself Cheyenne’s Frontier Cruelty.

2. Let Starbucks know your opinion on this appalling form of
"entertainment", and ask them to halt all involvement with any future rodeo
events.

3. Forward SHARK’s photos and video clips to compassionate friends and
ask them to get involved in stopping these atrocities.

*This horse was used in spite of an injury to its hoof. The blood
spatters inside the chute shows that this wasn't the first injured animal
used.

*All too common in Steer Roping. A steer is slammed on his head at the
Cheyenne Frontier Days rodeo. Starbucks extended hours for the people who
abused the rodeo's animal victims.

*Starbucks' support of the Cheyenne Frontier Days rodeo is as shocking as
the graphic abuse of this victim of the same rodeo.

*Injuries at the Frontier Days rodeo were common. Starbucks should not
support such cruelty.

*Words cannot describe the terror felt by these animals. (This face is
just same as the slaughtering house that people adores the meat/poultry.)

*Another fallen victim at the Cheyenne Frontier Days rodeo, which was
supported by Starbucks ad dollars.

*This event used to be called calf roping, because that's what it is.
Three to four month-old calves are clotheslined, body slammed and tied for
points. The calves are considered expendable. In an effort to mask the true
nature of this disgusting activity, rodeo people have now changed the name
of the event to "tie-down calf roping." The name has changed, but the
cruelty of the abusers is the same. Shame on Starbucks for funding brutality
against babies.

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